Boeing 747 Specs

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Boeing 747 Specs

The design and building of the Boeing 747 was an audacious leap forward in aviation. The demand to relieve congestion at airports struggling with the influx of a growing travelling public, was to be solved by offering fewer aircraft with higher carrying capacity. An aircraft with a carrying capacity double that of the existing work hosrses, the Boeing 707 and Douglas DC8, was required.

Strangely enough, it wasn’t the extra carrying capacity that attracted early customers of the aircraft, but longer range compared to other aircraft of the day.

The ability to consider designing such a large aircraft was made possible by the introduction of the High By-pass Turbo Fan engines that were able to deliver much higher thrust at a much reduced fuel burn rate compared to pure jets in use at the time.

The Boeing 747 family of aircraft.

The four engined Boeing 747 was designed to be the safest airliner so far built. Redundancy was in place for systems such as hydraulics, where a back up was available should the main system fail. There were dual control surfaces to enable the continued control of the aircraft should any of the surfaces fail. There were four main landing gear bogies each with four wheels. This was not only to spread the weight of the aircraft more evenly, but the 747 was capable of landing on two opposing bogies if necessary.

Everything about the 747 compared to other aircraft in use at the time of its initial launch, was on a grand scale. For instance; 147,000 pounds (66,150 kg) of high-strength aluminium is used in its construction, 171 miles (274 km) of wiring along with 5 miles (8 km) of tubing is used, six million parts are used, half of which are fastners.

An Air New Zealand Boeing 747 400 takes off from Christchurch, New Zealand.

QANTAS was one of the airlines that ordered the 747 SP. Due to its many long routes QANTAS benefited from the long range capabilities of the 747 SP without excess seat capacity. In January 1981 the SP was brought to Wellington New Zealand for a promotional and testing flight. Wellingtons’ runway is notoriously short and with water at both ends and fluky winds is a challenge at the best of times. The 747SP was the only 747 to ever have had scheduled services into Wellington.

The arrival of the QANTAS 747 SP was quite an event. The hills surrounding the airfield were lined with spectators waiting for this giant of the skies to descend out of the cloud. It was a sight to behold at this little capital city airport. The only other 747 that had landed here was a Pan Am 747 100 which had to divert from Auckland and couldn’t make it to Christchurch. To get it off the ground again, they had to remove the seats and send them to Auckland on the train.

I bet your Dad had some great stories to tell of those 747 days. I’ve scraped up some info below which I hope gives you some help to finding out more.

Thank you for stopping by. Don’t forget to share out site.

Cheers Peter

747-121 01/12/1988 to 05/01/1989 Reg: N751PA Sold to Evergreen Int
747-121 01/12/1988 to 13/07/1989 Reg: N753PA Sold to Evergreen Int
747-131 18/08/1970 to 01/03/1975 Reg: N93101 Sold to Iran Air Force
747-131 31/12/1969 to 14/11/1975 Reg: N93102 Sold to Boeing
747-131 08/10/1970 to 01/12/1975 Reg: N93103 Sold to Iran Air Force
747-131 20/02/1970 to 10/12/1990 Reg: N93104 Sold to Tower Air
747-131 03/04/1970 to 25/03/1992 Reg: N93106 Sold to Tower Air
747-131 26/09/1970 to 15/10/1975 Reg: N53111 Sold to Boeing
747-131 04/10/1970 to 14/03/1975 Reg: N53112 Sold to Boeing
747-238B 30/05/1996 to 17/09/1997 Reg: N307TW Sold to Aerolineas Argentinas
747-131 22/10/1970 to 31/03/1975 Reg: N93113 Sold to Boeing
747-131 02/11/1970 to 03/11/1975 Reg: N93114 Sold to Boeing
747-131 02/09/1971 to 13/11/1975 Reg: N93118 Sold to Boeing
747-131 27/10/1971 to 15/12/1975 Reg: N93119 Sold to Boeing
747-257B 17/05/1985 to 01/07/1992 Reg: N303TW Sold to Unknown
747-257B 01/07/1992 to 05/05/1993 Reg: N303TW Sold to Air Atlanta Icelandic
747-257B 18/02/1994 to 26/05/1998 Reg: N303TW Sold to Aerolineas Argentinas
747-257B 01/04/1985 to 15/05/1991 Reg: N304TW Sold to Nationair
747-136 25/03/1981 to 28/03/1991 Reg: N17125 Sold to Tower Air
747-136 30/03/1981 to 28/03/1991 Reg: N17126 Sold to Tower Air
747-131 20/05/1971 to 26/03/1987 Reg: N93115 Sold to GATX
747-131 24/05/1971 to 21/04/1987 Reg: N93117 Sold to Tower Air
747-131 08/12/1988 to 24/03/1993 Reg: N93117 Sold to Family Airlines
747-282B 04/06/1984 to 16/04/1993 Reg: N301TW Sold to Tower Air
747-282B 30/10/1984 to 16/04/1993 Reg: N302TW Sold to Tower Air
747-SP31 21/03/1980 to 21/02/1985 Reg: N58201 Sold to United Arab Emirates Gvmt
747-SP31 08/05/1980 to 16/10/1986 Reg: N57203 Sold to American Airlines
747-131 18?08/1971 to 17/07/1996 Reg: N93119 Lost off Long Island